The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

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HalfDemonInuyasha
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

On a random note, I do think one of the best parts of the animation, to me, is small, but that being seeing anti-beam coating working a lot more often rather than just in a couple couple-second-long scenes, then never again, like CCA had a couple instances of Jegan shields blocking beam shots, like one blocking several shots from Gyunei's Jagd Doga's beam assault rifle, and another Jegan's shield blocking one of Gyunei's funnel's beams (before destroyed by Gyunei's beam assault rifle from the side). Just throughout episode seven alone, much less the whole series, there were a number of instances of beams "splashing" against shields or even the bodies of MS thanks to anti-beam coating actually working.
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BrentD15
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

HalfDemonInuyasha wrote:On a random note, I do think one of the best parts of the animation, to me, is small, but that being seeing anti-beam coating working a lot more often rather than just in a couple couple-second-long scenes, then never again, like CCA had a couple instances of Jegan shields blocking beam shots, like one blocking several shots from Gyunei's Jagd Doga's beam assault rifle, and another Jegan's shield blocking one of Gyunei's funnel's beams (before destroyed by Gyunei's beam assault rifle from the side). Just throughout episode seven alone, much less the whole series, there were a number of instances of beams "splashing" against shields or even the bodies of MS thanks to anti-beam coating actually working.
Yeah, little details like that demonstrating the technology at work are pretty cool. :)
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sdwoodchuck
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Long time browser of the website (and "Mecha Domain" before that), first time poster on the forums here, though I used to post ages ago on Gundamproject.com and Gundam.com. I guess Unicorn just made me angry enough to break my silence.

I'm going to be perfectly blunt and say right up front that I hated it. I didn't hate it because of Newtype Magic, or because of a lack of hard science fiction elements or anything like that, I hated it because it's a mess of amateurish writing, poor pacing, nonsensical characters with poorly contrived motivations, and overall a bunch of bad ideas executed poorly.

The biggest problem is that the series is completely high on its own philosophical dialogue. Constantly, characters are breaking out into dramatic monologues to explain their ideas to the audience. Over, and over, and over again. The same ideas, the same descriptions of those ideas, sometimes to the same characters, sometimes to new characters, just running these verbal circles wasting so much screen time on catchphrase philosophical junk. "Souls weighed down by gravity!" "The God of Possibility!" "I'll use Laplace's Box for everybody!" All of these are hollow concepts that are supposed to carry some resonance because someone says them passionately, but really all it's doing is masking the fact that nothing is happening at all.

I don't mean that as hyperbole. There is basically no plot at all in Unicorn; there is simply a framework conflict to hang movement and action and dramatic monologues on. There's just this sort of tide of writer-will, and the characters helplessly flow along the current, butting heads and shooting at each other. So much of the character motivations are both ham-fisted, and handled in the past so that they need to be delivered through bland exposition. "My whole family was killed so I hate the federation and Puru Twelve has become my surrogate daughter; let me tell you about this for several minutes while poignantly not looking you in the eye." Banagher has no character arc at all. He doesn't grow, or change, or come to have some understanding about the world he lives in. And let me clear that I'm not saying that the lack of action is what bothers me; it's the lack of any kind of story progress. Events just happen without any real driving motivation. Characters just fill the roles that they're expected to fill in order for a conflict to happen. Compare this to the first half of Turn A, for example. That wasn't especially action-packed either, but the political maneuvering actually had some heft to it. It was driven by characters whose motivations were understandable, and even when we weren't getting regular fights, things were happening to push the story forward. In Unicorn, the story just moves forward because the writer says so.

Here is your summary of what actually happens: The original Universal Century charter said to give government priority to more highly evolved people if they should ever appear, but then the Federation government changed their minds, and some guys stole the monument and hid it, and use it to blackmail the federation. Now, almost one hundred years later, the old guy who did this in the first place is having some death-bed second thoughts, and says "the best way to handle this is to make a mobile suit that can find a for-real newtype for me, so I can have him decide what to do with this monument I stole." It would appear that this is an overly elaborate method but luckily it works out because a big conflict just so happens to erupt right on time, making a Mobile Suit piloting newtype a valuable commodity. The Unicorn then starts giving Banagher some coordinates, like a scavenger hunt, and he gets to jet around the Earth system meeting people on both sides that he can yell his philosophy at, while they shoot at each other. Eventually, he gets a "Full Armor" modification on his Unicorn Gundam, which doesn't actually add much armor, but does add a whole lot of guns, which is ironic because he has made a point of not shooting people up to this point. In the end, he winds up literally right back where he started (this is some creative writing 101 "bringing the story full circle" crap), where the old man shows him a slide show and they exchange monologues, and Banagher steps outside to fight Full Frontal because...? Well, because he's the guy wearing the mask. His strategy of just shooting the legs off of his enemies is thwarted by the Neo Zeong having its legs pre-shot-off, so instead the two mobile suits hug each other through time. Also, there's a black Unicorn because, I dunno? But he gets left out of the atemporal hug, because he's a grumpy Gus. Banagher then returns to the present, just in time to block a colony laser from shooting his girlfriend and melting the stolen monument.

Okay, now aside from my own snide slant to the description, this is what actually happens in this series. This is nonsense, and is only masked by the reveals happening when the writers hope you're already invested in the characters enough to not notice. I was pretty disappointed with Stardust Memory for having similarly silly problems, but Unicorn takes the cake, man.

And this junk doesn't even touch on silliness like "what possible function could the Unicorn have in transforming face."

Wow, I just hate this series so much.
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HellCat
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

The thing for someone like me is that when we live in a world where Transformers is up to its 4th movie, all basically being the same movie tweaked four times over and with little to no attempt to knit the constantly confused backstory together (how many centuries in waiting plots was Megatron running? Optimus is now suddenly part of an order of Knights?), I can't really fault Unicorn in how it tries to tell a hopeful story that tries to bring an adult vantage point to a point in the UC timeline that is ripe to be exploited. How the world reacted to the 'Axis Shock' is a tale worth telling, certainly more so than yet another OYW sidestory that barely even fits in. Laplace's Box is somewhat wobbly but when I look at Unicorn as a whole I think it speaks of why Gundam has continued 35 years later. Sure it's fueled by partly by commercial ambition but the heart of Gundam is questions like 'Is it really the adult thing to do to shut your emotions off? Are younger people ignorant or wiser then their elders?'. Unicorn expresses themes that have been often repeated in Gundam while at the same time giving a voice for its intended adult audience of 'If we're supposed to trust in the youth, then what role do we play? Have we already been and gone?'.
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sdwoodchuck
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Unicorn exists in the same world as Transformers, which is much worse, sure. But if we're using an exaggerated negative comparison, we also have to compare it to the positive peaks as well. We live in a world with James Joyce, and Kurosawa, and Tarkovsky. Even if we just limit it to science fiction, it exists in the same world as Gene Wolfe, and by comparison it tells a simplistic, idiotic, nonsensical, and immature story. Using other stories as comparison works both ways, and frankly isn't fair in either case.

And again, let's be clear; I don't fault it for trying to tackle certain themes, I fault it for fumbling them very badly, at every step.
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

I disagree fundamentally and completely with so, so much of that. I'm not gonna argue individual points, because you hate the series a lot and nothing I say will convince you, and that's fine (I'm the same way with the things I hate). But you talk about all of that as if it's objectively true, and it...isn't? I'm very experienced in literature, of all kinds, and I didn't find its story simplistic, idiotic, or immature; I found that plenty "happens" in the show; I enjoyed the arc that I saw the show giving Banagher; I thought it handled the cast majority of its themes very very well; and so on. Clearly it's not your bag, and nothing it did or said resonated with you, but to claim that it's objectively devoid of all those things when plenty of viewers have found them in it is getting a little high on yourself, isn't it?
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sdwoodchuck
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

I didn't claim that there was anything "objectively" wrong with it at all; putting words in my mouth doesn't bolster your point. Whenever we discuss opinions on media, we're discussing things that are, without exception, subjective, and assuming otherwise because somebody didn't throw a superfluous "in my opinion" tag onto what they say is silly.
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

I generally agree with sdwoodchuck. Perhaps it was because of the time constraints imposed on an OVA versus a full series (but then, 0080 did just fine with six half-hour episodes, and Unicorn had more than twice that amount of screen time), and perhaps it was because it was an adaptation of a work from another medium (but then, plenty of anime manage that without having any issues), but Unicorn just felt like less than the sum of its parts.

The ingredients were there -- the characters certainly had potential -- but they never did anything with them. The only two characters that were really any substantially different between the beginning of the first episode and the end of the last were Alberto (who seems genuinely affected by seeing Mardia vis-a-vis Ple 12 and spends the rest of the series trying to be a decent human being) and Micott (who goes from being clingy and hysterical to being a confident and self-composed crew member of the Nahel Argama). Unfortunately, both of them are minor characters -- Banahger, Mineva, Riddhe, Marida, Zinnerman, and Full Frontal all go through the entire series without significant character development, to say nothing of the mess of other supporting characters.

Well, Zinnerman did change a little in that he mellowed out enough to work with the Nahel Argama at the end, but he never really came to terms with his hate of the Federation, it just sort of got pushed to the side. And Riddhe certainly did something over the course of the series, but it was so incoherent that I have literally no idea what was going on with him. First he was the naive but well meaning kid from a political family trying to prove himself on his own as a military officer. Then he had a creepy stalker-crush (or Newtype resonance?) with Audrey. Then he was the hardass veteran soldier to Banagher's naive kid on the battlefield. Then he went crazy and wanted to kill Banagher for... reasons? He spends a couple episodes as a bad guy until he kills Marida and all the Newtype communication being thrown at him (which he'd been consciously rejecting up until that point) suddenly and inexplicably changes his mind and he happily becomes Banagher's wingman. I really, truly, have no Earthly idea what the hell was going on with Riddhe. I'm not convinced the writers did, either.

Then there was the plot. It didn't go anywhere either. Or rather, it lurched unconvincingly from action scene to action scene without maintaining any sort of coherent narrative. Most of what went on in the series can be summarized as "the good guys go where the Unicorn tells them, and then fight the bad guys when they get there because the bad guys know where the Unicorn wants to go just as well as the good guys do" (and most of what's left over is "the Federation tries to kill the good guys, because Reasons"). The entire series is spent building up the fact that opening Laplace's Box would spell the end of the Federation -- and in the end they go and do it and nothing happens, because of course they're restrained by the existing timeline. It makes the whole thing feel like a waste of time.

The decision of whether or not to open the box is presented as a dilemma between taking a principled stand that will cause more conflict (revealing the truth and thus throwing the Earth Federation into chaos) or maintaining peace even at the cost of their moral principles (keeping the box under wraps in order to avoid resurgent anti-Federation sentiment leading to another war). In the end, our heroes throw caution to the wind and do the Right Thing... and nothing happens, because nothing can happen, because the post-Unicorn UC timeline has already been written. It kills any sense of meaning, because neither Banagher nor Mineva actually has to deal with the consequences of their decision. They don't have to face the fact that they got countless people killed by starting a new round of fighting against the Federation. They don't have to live with having added fuel to the anti-Federation fire just before it went out completely, sending the Earth Sphere on the road back to war instead of leaving it in peace for the first time in nearly 30 years. The entire ending is an incredible cop out, letting the protagonists have their Idealism cake and eat it too.
HellCat wrote:How the world reacted to the 'Axis Shock' is a tale worth telling
I agree, but Unicorn certainly wasn't that story. I don't even mean that they did it poorly -- I mean that Unicorn isn't a story about the reaction to the Axis Shock at all. What relevance does it have to the plot? Okay, without psycoframe technology they would have had to change the gimmicks of some of the mecha, and if it took place before CCA they would have had to decide what Amuro and Char were up to during it, but none of that really affects the main story of "guy with Laplace's Box decides to get rid of it, designs arbitrary mecha-powered scavenger hunt with Laplace's Box as the prize, gives said mecha to angsty teenager ripe with Newtype potential". A story about the Earth Sphere's reaction to the Axis Shock would be an interesting story -- how do various factions react to it, what new conflicts does is cause, what old conflicts does it resolve? -- but Unicorn didn't address that even indirectly (except, perhaps, by ignoring it -- implying that the reaction to the Axis Shock amounted to nothing much).
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Angelo Sauper
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:The entire series is spent building up the fact that opening Laplace's Box would spell the end of the Federation

No, the series builds on the paranoia of the people trying to protect the secret of Laplace's box because they're convinced it will be catastrophic for the Federation, and others fear the possibility of it being catastrophic.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote: -- and in the end they go and do it and nothing happens, because of course they're restrained by the existing timeline. It makes the whole thing feel like a waste of time.


That's the point. The story is about the journey to unlocking Laplace's box, it barely touches upon the actual consequences of revealing it.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:The decision of whether or not to open the box is presented as a dilemma between taking a principled stand that will cause more conflict (revealing the truth and thus throwing the Earth Federation into chaos) or maintaining peace even at the cost of their moral principles (keeping the box under wraps in order to avoid resurgent anti-Federation sentiment leading to another war).


It's not presented like that. It's presented as "Do we protect the status quo and a twisted system to avoid risking a new large scale conflict, or do we risk a cataclysmic event to try and purge the twisted system and build a better tomorrow?"

In the end there's no tragic consequence that we know of, it's hinted quite a bit that nothing will change and certainly the timeline with F91 suggests that.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:In the end, our heroes throw caution to the wind and do the Right Thing... and nothing happens, because nothing can happen, because the post-Unicorn UC timeline has already been written.


That's not necessarily the case. I can't come to any conclusions on whether Unicorn was written with the period of peace before F91 in mind or not. It seems to be written with an ambiguous ending so it could go in its own direction and with its theme of possibility.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote: It kills any sense of meaning, because neither Banagher nor Mineva actually has to deal with the consequences of their decision. They don't have to face the fact that they got countless people killed by starting a new round of fighting against the Federation.

They don't have to live with having added fuel to the anti-Federation fire just before it went out completely, sending the Earth Sphere on the road back to war instead of leaving it in peace for the first time in nearly 30 years...


And why would they? Yes, they partook in the events, but neither Mineva nor Banagher set the chain of events in motion. Neither of them really encouraged the conflict and nobody in particular is to blame (another major theme right there).

Honestly, Gundam Unicorn gets fairly meta which is probably what upsets people, but the novels do a very good job of grounding the story within the established early UC timeline, even if there are some hiccups around.
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

It's worth noting that, by F91 and especially by Victory, the influence of the Federation has decreased greatly. It's entirely possible that, while not bringing about the catastrophic downfall of the Federation, the revelation of the Box caused them to lose a good amount of their foothold and influence in space and the governing of the colonies (and that lack of influence also allowed something like Cosmo Babylonia to emerge).

Sure, it's a little strange that it never comes up, but then again neither does 0083's colony drop. And how often are the politics of the Federation 30-50 years prior ever discussed in those productions? There may not have been mass upheaval, but the UC world and the Federation's place in it is indeed different. Perhaps we're meant to infer that as the long term effect of Mineva's broadcast.
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excalibur2008
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Kratos wrote:There may not have been mass upheaval, but the UC world and the Federation's place in it is indeed different. Perhaps we're meant to infer that as the long term effect of Mineva's broadcast.
Considering how bad off humanity sounds as being in the upcoming Gundam series that kind of makes Unicorns heroes seem more like villains that destroyed civilization and decimated the human race in the long term.
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Well, Reconguista is over a thousand years down the line. I'm not sure how many of their problems can be traced specifically to the weakening of the Federation's influence in space; any number of things could have happened in the interim.
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BrentD15
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Angelo Sauper wrote:
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:The entire series is spent building up the fact that opening Laplace's Box would spell the end of the Federation

No, the series builds on the paranoia of the people trying to protect the secret of Laplace's box because they're convinced it will be catastrophic for the Federation, and others fear the possibility of it being catastrophic.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote: -- and in the end they go and do it and nothing happens, because of course they're restrained by the existing timeline. It makes the whole thing feel like a waste of time.


That's the point. The story is about the journey to unlocking Laplace's box, it barely touches upon the actual consequences of revealing it.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:The decision of whether or not to open the box is presented as a dilemma between taking a principled stand that will cause more conflict (revealing the truth and thus throwing the Earth Federation into chaos) or maintaining peace even at the cost of their moral principles (keeping the box under wraps in order to avoid resurgent anti-Federation sentiment leading to another war).


It's not presented like that. It's presented as "Do we protect the status quo and a twisted system to avoid risking a new large scale conflict, or do we risk a cataclysmic event to try and purge the twisted system and build a better tomorrow?"

In the end there's no tragic consequence that we know of, it's hinted quite a bit that nothing will change and certainly the timeline with F91 suggests that.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:In the end, our heroes throw caution to the wind and do the Right Thing... and nothing happens, because nothing can happen, because the post-Unicorn UC timeline has already been written.


That's not necessarily the case. I can't come to any conclusions on whether Unicorn was written with the period of peace before F91 in mind or not. It seems to be written with an ambiguous ending so it could go in its own direction and with its theme of possibility.
Brave Fencer Kirby wrote: It kills any sense of meaning, because neither Banagher nor Mineva actually has to deal with the consequences of their decision. They don't have to face the fact that they got countless people killed by starting a new round of fighting against the Federation.

They don't have to live with having added fuel to the anti-Federation fire just before it went out completely, sending the Earth Sphere on the road back to war instead of leaving it in peace for the first time in nearly 30 years...


And why would they? Yes, they partook in the events, but neither Mineva nor Banagher set the chain of events in motion. Neither of them really encouraged the conflict and nobody in particular is to blame (another major theme right there).

Honestly, Gundam Unicorn gets fairly meta which is probably what upsets people, but the novels do a very good job of grounding the story within the established early UC timeline, even if there are some hiccups around.
And again, all of these are points that we have discussed in this thread in detail.

If people want to just say "we just don't like it/we hate it", then just say it.
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excalibur2008
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Kratos wrote:Well, Reconguista is over a thousand years down the line. I'm not sure how many of their problems can be traced specifically to the weakening of the Federation's influence in space; any number of things could have happened in the interim.
Though considering at least two new amoral factions with doomsday weapons arose to fill the vacuum the weakening of the Federation's influence in space probably didn't help that much either.

Though it is kind of funny that from the sounds of it the next era doesn't have space colonies and there hasn't been anything that confirms the existence of newtypes in the Reguild Century so far, so really all the things Zeon and the other factions trying to turn space into their personal empire went on about have possibly faded from history thus making all of their wars ultimately pointless in the grand scheme of things.
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Angelo Sauper wrote:No, the series builds on the paranoia of the people trying to protect the secret of Laplace's box because they're convinced it will be catastrophic for the Federation, and others fear the possibility of it being catastrophic.
And the possibility of them being wrong is never raised. It's never suggested that the people who are worried about the downfall of the Earth Federation are overreacting, or really just worried about themselves and saying "the Federation" instead of "me" because it sounds better, or anything like that. It's presented with a straight face that opening the Box is an existential threat to the Earth Federation, and no one ever challenges that. If it was supposed to be otherwise, then the series should have made that clear (either by foreshadowing that the consequences of opening the Box were being overstated, or in an epilogue that showed the public reaction to the Box not being as extreme as predicted). As is, there's all this build up and then nothing comes of it.
Angelo Sauper wrote:That's the point. The story is about the journey to unlocking Laplace's box, it barely touches upon the actual consequences of revealing it.
That is my precise complaint. If you're going to retcon something like Unicorn into an existing timeline, then you need to show the consequences of your story and show how it fits. Unicorn talks about how disruptive opening the Box would be, then opens the Box, then... nothing. No hint of the response from the public. No explanation of how this fits into F91 and Victory. As a stand-alone piece that could have worked, because fans can speculate on what happens in the end. But as part of an existing timeline it doesn't, because fans are left wondering how we get from the end of Unicorn to the beginning of F91 with no credible way to bridge that gap.
Angelo Sauper wrote:It's not presented like that. It's presented as "Do we protect the status quo and a twisted system to avoid risking a new large scale conflict, or do we risk a cataclysmic event to try and purge the twisted system and build a better tomorrow?"
How is that any different than what I said?
Angelo Sauper wrote:In the end there's no tragic consequence that we know of, it's hinted quite a bit that nothing will change and certainly the timeline with F91 suggests that.
Which goes against everything Unicorn had been building to. If you say "opening the Box reveals the truth but leads to war, and destroying it unopened hides the truth but maintains the peace", then opening the Box but maintaining the peace (without any explanation of how you managed to do that) is bad writing.
Angelo Sauper wrote:And why would they? Yes, they partook in the events, but neither Mineva nor Banagher set the chain of events in motion. Neither of them really encouraged the conflict and nobody in particular is to blame (another major theme right there).
They opened the Box. That was their decision. They could have destroyed it (as the Federation wanted to) or keep it hidden, unopened (as the Sleeves wanted to), but they choose to open it instead. The consequences of that choice are therefore their responsibility.
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HellCat
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Correct me if I'm wrong but there are at least two points in the series where they actually do question the whole conspiracy. I think one was in the scene in Frontal's conference room, where he basically says 'Let me ask you a blunt question- do you genuinely believe in a mystery box that no one has heard of for nearly a century and which if opened could destroy the world as we know it?'

In fact I think this is something Unicorn does rather well. Bleak as it is, it undercuts the 'human potential' theme as much as champions it. Riddhe directly snarls against fighting for a future they'll never personally see vs making a comfortable life in the present and Frontal shows Banagher that both humanity and the universe will eventually wither and die, so what point is there in pushing ourselves to our hidden limits? I'd actually love to see this done more often. I love 00 for instance but it kind of swept its own contradictions under the carpet at times ("We'll create a new world without killing...RIIIIGHT after we kill those guys over there while calling it something else!")
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Kratos wrote:It's worth noting that, by F91 and especially by Victory, the influence of the Federation has decreased greatly. It's entirely possible that, while not bringing about the catastrophic downfall of the Federation, the revelation of the Box caused them to lose a good amount of their foothold and influence in space and the governing of the colonies (and that lack of influence also allowed something like Cosmo Babylonia to emerge).
on the other hand, by F91 and Victory, there is no more Zeon and there hasn't been for decades (unless you count the Oldsmobiles, and their own story doesn't see them having any impact anyway, so who cares about them). Zeon is the main instigator of the Federation's meddling in the colonies, whether it's as justified armed response to a legitimate threat (i.e. Londo Bell) or as an excuse for more control and oppression (i.e. the Titans). but Unicorn is also about the last gasp of Zeon before they finally give up the ghost. after Unicorn, Zeon has essentially disappeared, meaning the Federation has finally destroyed the last shadows of the people who started that big war that killed half the human race in UC 0079. their decline after that is natural and unsurprising for the simple reason that their justification for having so much power--the threat of Zeon's reemergence--no longer exists.
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Amion
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Good point, Shadowcell. And while I'm agreeing, I will add that since the Federation is in space by V, I wonder if that influences their stagnation? Probably not, but it does give question as to whether they became more spacenoid biased and started handing power out to the individual colonies.

On an unrelated note, I was wondering about the figures we get in Unicorn compared to CCA about the population: isn't supposed to be only 3 billion or so by Unicorn? I seem to remember that brought up earlier. Is it possible Quess was giving us a rough estimate of the population before Char started dropping colonies, and the death toll reduced it a significantly lower number? (I'm sure people have asked this before, probably me. :P )
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Brave Fencer Kirby
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

We've had discussions about population figures before, but IIRC Quess says 10 billion people in space during CCA, and Banagher says 10 billion people total during Unicorn, though I'd have to double check to be sure.
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Re: The Official Gundam Unicorn Anime Thread Mk VII

Whoopsies.

So yeah, nevermind. I guess it's a constantly fluctuating figure for some mysterious reason. Maybe the supposed rumors about future UC cannibalism have roots here somewhere.
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